Monday, January 12, 2015

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Hi Linda' Breeders were talking about red Rollers on the 'Roller Canary Journal...I have [yellow-colored]Rollers and [red-intensive] Red Factor females and visa-versa. How does one go about developing a Red Roller canary? What pairings, does one make after,the first cross F1 (male-yellow Roller/female Red Factor) IN THE F2/F3/etc; FUTURE CROSSESTO GET RED ROLLERS? Wishing you all the best in 2015 and a successful breeding season!!!

Red rollers - When I was in Germany at the major show, they provided special roller sections for red and other colors.

During the time I set with the judges judging the rollers, a team of red ones came in for judging. They were judged using the same criteria as the other roller teams. Sadly, they were not very good and in reviewing the scores of others in the special sections, they clearly were not of the quality of the other rollers. To get the quality of good rollers would take a lifetime..

If I were doing it, I would use half brother/sisters and keep working on one line for color and the other for song.

My aviary has many kinds of birds but the one thing I do not have room for is bad rollers. The open mouthed Borders, Staffords etc are not a problem as the rollers do not pay any attention to them and do not learn bad sounds from them even though the aviary is loud with open mouth singing. But put them with a faulty roller and they learn it in a few hours... That is why you do not want to move young rollers around other groupings. At least if you have a problem, it is confined to one cage.

Staffords To get good Staffords they have to fit the standard for a Stafford. A Stafford is a TYPE bird with Color. The type is similar to the Gloster and the color from colorbred.

I started with Staffords but at the time they had better type than color. I just keep working to improve them year after year.

At the National this year, finally a Stafford with such quality that it gave the gloster best bird in show competition a very strong run!

Truly the Stafford is a beauty but it needs the great crest of a gloster but with the colorbred red coloring.

After about five years breeding and starting with Staffords, I produce a good one that won a major show. It had a beautiful round crest and won in spite of the fact it was orange not red. Now I have been breeding in A red Stafford but lacking in type and after five more years I produced a good bird not as good as Jan Davie's which won the national Stafford section (she also won the best bird in show with her gloster).I would have used a red factor to breed in color but I couldn't find one with a rounded head. To get the crest you have to use birds with rounded heads and thick necks which you do not see in red factors.

Once you start working making the gloster/red factor cross you can call them Staffords but a show bird will take many years to develop.

Belgium Trip - I love to learn about canaries whether from my own experiences or others.

The Belgium trip was a great opportunity for learning and stimulus for examining what we do for our birds and why.

Even today, diets are often deficient in either multiple nutrients or in balancing nutrients.

Each breeder has their own unique situations to address. For myself, any illness is rare. I quarantine new birds away from my birds and after 4 to 6 weeks separate from others in the aviary. I admit that I like the challenge of try to cure problems but I also believe strongly in culling birds and only breeding the healthiest! I separate any suspect birds, treat and if returned to health, I place them in my special old age cage that welcomes those not living up to my definition for breeding. If they remain healthy, they are given away to nursing homes or to people who have limited income and just want a pet.

The worst thing is not that a bird fails to breed but that it could be treated to the point that it does produce a whole aviary just like it.

So what am I doing with the information, reading it and examining my practices to make sure I am doing the very best for my birds.

With four hens in 2014, I could potentially get more than twenty new birds. I would only retain a fraction for 2016, so I would have to find a home for a number of them. Donating to nursing homes, elementary school classrooms, or shut-ins would be a good use. I could sell some to two or three pet stores and feed stores that have taken them before.

I imagine lonely, a elderly woman in a nursing home sitting near at he cage listening pacifically to a beautiful canary song.

Why try to start afresh to make original crosses to create Staffords, red factors, or American Singers when there are plenty of established strains to choose from? Personally, I would get more satisfaction from using existing superior strains to breed quality birds, and to try to improve the quality.

Touching on ur comments regarding rollers not being affected by open mouthed singing canaries such as borders, I can confirm. However, are they capable of picking up sounds from wild birds? I have an outdoor aviary and my garden attracts many wild birds including wild canaries. Placed in it, could my rollers be affected? Shawn

2011 Visitor Counter

Visitor Counter

Search This Blog

Big Bird

About Me

My first canary memory was early childhood as my mother raised about 100 canaries each year. During the breeding season, she was always finding a young chick which she said needed hand feeding. I would use a toothpick to stuff its crop with eggfood. It never occurred to me that each time it was a different chick! I still have a weakness for hand feeding although I rarely do it as the mothers food is far superior. When I was 16, I adopted an elderly "grandmother" and she raised German rollers. I would sit for hours and listen to her green roller singers. I banded my first birds in 1980. I achieved master breeder exhibitor status in color-bred canaries and German Rollers.
I became a judge and hold judging credentials from the Central States Roller Canary, National Colorbred, Stafford Canary, North American Border and Old Varieties Canary Associations. I have judged shows all over the US including Puerto Rico and Canada.
My book "The Complete Canary Handbook, Canary Tales" is in its 14th edition and sells worldwide. In a typical year, I breed around 150 canaries. My current aviary includes German Rollers, Borders, Staffords, and Colorbreds.